Three House Republicans signal new push on immigration reform is coming

posted at 11:21 am on April 28, 2014 by Allahpundit

Three that I’ve noticed, that is. There may be more beneath my radar, and if there are, please e-mail me the links so that I can add them as updates. And no, I’m not including Adam Kinzinger or Aaron Schock in this. If you count them too, then we’ve got five different GOPers suddenly talking this up.

As Trotsky famously said, you may not be interested in amnesty but amnesty is interested in you. First up: Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House, who delivered the official party rebuttal to the State of the Union back in January. She’s also the only one of the three to float a concrete timeline.

McMorris Rodgers said she still thinks a deal could be struck before the election. “I believe there is a path that we get a bill on the floor by August,” she said.

A bipartisan plan was passed in the Senate last spring but made no headway in the Republican-controlled House. McMorris Rodgers echoed the concern brought up by many in the chamber, saying she wants to see stronger border security. But she said she’d support a bill that grants legal status to those undocumented immigrants working toward citizenship, allowing them to remain in the country to work and go to school while they wait their turn in the current system.

“We’re going to have to push that this is a legal status, not amnesty,” she said.

A bitterly divisive party battle over immigration sounds like a fine idea three months before the midterms. Note the rhetoric about “legalization, not amnesty,” too. That’s an old saw used by Republicans to try to sell their immigration compromises to the base. Rubio and the Gang of Eight used it too, emphasizing that the path to citizenship under their bill would be long and onerous while quietly avoiding the fact that probationary legalization for illegals under their scheme would be quick and painless. Legalization is the whole ballgame here, of course; once illegals have a foothold to lawfully remain in the U.S., immigration activists will quickly wear down Republican resolve on delaying citizenship. And McMorris-Rodgers knows it.

Next up: Mario Diaz-Balart, a member of the House’s (now defunct) version of the Gang of Eight and therefore someone whom Boehner naturally would be chatting with about this process. He’s vaguer on the timeline but confident that things are happening.

“I think we finally have the policy right,” he said in a phone interview. “I think we have figured out a way to secure, to have border and interior security, holding the administration accountable for the enforcement … forcing the administration to enforce the law whether they want to or not. And I think we figured out a way to deal with the folks that are here in a way that is fair — fair, by the way, to those in the legal system … who are doing everything legally, and also deals with the folks that are here in a way that is fair and reasonable. And adheres, strictly adheres, to the rule of law…

“It is as close as we have ever been. It is still a big, big, heavy lift,” he said. “I think we’re going to get there.”…

“We’re going to need a large group of Republicans and Democrats who are willing to stand up and do what is right for our country. What I’m finding is that there are a lot of them out there,” Diaz-Balart told CQ Roll Call.

That last bit’s not true, actually. They need a large group of Democrats but only a small-ish group of a few dozen Republicans to get to 218. It’s purely a matter of Boehner’s own political courage in being willing to bring a bill to the floor and pass it along those lines, which is what made his mockery last week so ironic. He could end this process and pass the Gang of Eight bill in a matter of weeks if he wanted to, but he’s afraid the caucus will toss him out on his ear if he does so he’s holding back. To quote the man himself, “Ooooooh, this is too hard.”

Last up: Texas Republican Joe Barton. Back in January, when Boehner and the leadership released their “principles” on immigration reform, Barton seemed to think the obstacles to a deal were insurmountable. Lo and behold, three months later he’s working on a bill of his own.

Barton, R-Arlington, said his bill would be ready in a month to six weeks.

“If it were to become law it would solve the problem,” Barton said during a recording of Lone Star Politics, which airs Sunday at 8:40 a.m. on KXAS-TV (NBC 5).

Barton said his plan would put a heavy emphasis on border security, which could mollify the most conservative Republicans in Congress.

But he added that “minor children” would get a path to citizenship, and that there would be an effective guest worker program for immigrants with jobs. And Barton would give adults in the country illegally a chance to gain legal status, but not citizenship.

Hard to tell from those bare-bones details whether he’d make legalization contingent upon border security, as border hawks want, or if they’d be on independent tracks, a la the Gang of Eight bill. If it’s the former, the bill is DOA with Democrats and therefore DOA in the House entirely. (There likely aren’t 218 Republican votes for any sort of immigration proposal except maybe a pure enforcement measure.) If it’s the latter, the bill is DOA with Republicans — but maybe not DOA in the House entirely. Again, it’ll come down to whether Boehner is willing to violate the Hastert Rule and pass a comprehensive bill (or series of bills that amount to a comprehensive bill) with a majority of Democrats and minority of Republicans. After last week’s outburst, would you put it past him?

Blowback

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Comments

Oh, good! I was beginning to worry Republican actually wanted to win this fall. Fantastic to know both sides of the aisle are still only concerned with keeping the money flowing into their own already full pockets.

Socialism is anathema to freedom. If somehow a majority of Americans, 51%, voted to turn us into a full blown socialist state against the wishes of the minority, what recourse is there for the minority? Socialism, like Obamacare, is coercion. It demands 100% participation. Capitalism doesn’t demand your participation. Socialism is evil.

The fact of the matter is that everybody knows that with legal status, amnesty is sure to follow. It is one of the lies the pro-amnesty crowd refuses to acknowledge, even here at HA. They pretend as if this isn’t amnesty just as long enough that it does become amnesty.

If you tie amnesty for illegals to only being able to legally put black people out of even more jobs they’re potentially qualified for work here and NEVER being eligible to vote I’ll at least listen to your proposal.

Anything granting citizenship/voting and I’m out.

rogerb on April 28, 2014 at 11:51 AM

You can’t trust their “proposal”. They’ve proven that time and time again. Anything they pass out of the House, no matter what it has in it, will be gutted and replaced in conference and the Senate will pass it.

If the Senate’s version does happen to have some kind of provision that doesn’t allow the “new citizens” to vote or whatever (which I highly doubt the Dims would allow that type of thing to stay in it to begin with), then it will be challenged by La Raza the minute the Preezy signs it and the Supreme Court WILL allow them to vote, etc.

That’s like saying Hitler was better than Stalin because he killed fewer people.

53% of Hispanic births in the U.S. are born to single mothers (source: U.S. Census) and 34% of inmates in federal prisons are Hispanic (source: Federal Bureau of Prisons). Slightly better than the “citizens” you referenced, but not much.

bw222 on April 28, 2014 at 11:51 AM

No, your HItler Stalin analogy is exactly what I was talking about, being “dramatic” for the sake of drama and thinking that helps your case…yeah, illegal immigration is the same as killing 6 million people…good grief.

First of all, your stats are foolish, those are “surnames”, some of them could be 3rd generation citizens for all you know. So I suspect the rest is just garbage you Googled and copied from some website.

The same things you say now, is exactly what they said about the Irish, and the Italian’s, and most other immigrants.

If you want to condemn Hispanics, go ahead, but it may or not have anything to do with “illegal”.

The real problem is the border…anything else is created to keep your eye off of that problem.

Don’t fall into the trap of saying illegal immigration is the same as stealing or any other inflammatory statement you can reach.

What it does is keep you and others from the real problem, border security.

right2bright on April 28, 2014 at 11:46 AM

Its a perfect analogy though because the result of illegal immigration IS theft. Moreover, border security fails to address one of the biggest flaws in our immigration system: foreigners who long overstay their visas (Aunty Obama for example). The issue is so much more complex then just throwing up a fence and calling it secure.

If you knowingly buy stolen items you are breaking the law. The same vigorous prosecution should apply to those who hire, house, and bank illegals. This solves the problem a fence will not.

We DO need some mechanism for seasonal work permits. At least we do here in California. For over 100 years, heck, since before California was even a state, the same towns in Mexico have sent workers up to work the farms, groves, and ranches in the central valley.

The workers would come up in spring and go home in the fall. They can’t do that now. Most of them are trying to stay over year-round now and in the winter months are a burden on social services. In fact, a lot of them are just going home and not coming back now that the Mexican economy is undergoing faster economic growth than the US economy is. This is leaving California farms with severe worker shortages. Many of the farms are just leaving and either leasing land in Mexico where they can get water and labor or they are just going out of business.

Our farming economy on California has relied on inexpensive seasonal labor to get food to our tables. We have got to have some mechanism for allowing legitimate seasonal workers to come up here in the spring and go home after harvest. They are not taking jobs away from Americans in these cases as we see evidenced by up to a 30% worker shortage in some counties in the central valley. It is also impacting the wine region with a severe shortage of experienced grape pickers.

We do need some sort of reform. We do need a way to allow legitimate workers to cross the borders and not make that so hard that they are tempted to either bring their entire family across and stay so they don’t have to try to run back and forth or they just stop coming putting our farms out of business or causing them to move to Mexico.

Appears to be the GOP leadership reason for being. They simply play like they represent what most Republicans desire for their nation, when in reality the leadership has played us for patsies for far too many years. We keep thinking they will actually change for the better when they have overwhelming numbers in the House and Senate, when, if they do, they will continue to concede too much to the dem minority.

The Dems are Centralized Government REGULAR socialists, – GOP leadership is Centralized Government LITE socialists. One takes the quick and direct path to that Progressive Utopia, the other takes the meandering slow path, but the destination remains the same.

This isn’t hard to figure out. The donor class wants amnesty, and leadership calculates that conservatives will fall back in line after the initial grousing, like we always do. Until we demonstrate we are willing to walk away, our priorities will never be the GOP’s priorities.

Well then, the only thing that is left is revenge. If your from KY there is still time to exact revenge on Mitch McConnell and the Senate. How embarrassing for the Republicans if their minority leader got the axe especially in a year they were supposed to take the Senate. You can vote Bevin in the primary and if that fails you can vote Democrat. I mean after all what difference does it make?

magicbeans on April 28, 2014 at 11:49 AM

That’s exactly what I am doing. I am voting for Bevin, and if McConnell wins the primary, I am implimenting “Operation Set It On Fire”. I will vote for Alison Hyphenated-DASH-Name.

What difference does it make? In the case of McConnell it’s trading 6 years of knowing we are going to get stabbed in the back with someone we can directly oppose.

I see more of the “securing the borders will solve the problem and then we can have amnesty” argument here.

Just stop it. It won’t work, and you know it. To secure the border you must have an executive willing to enforce the law.

We don’t have that. We won’t have that after 2016.

So just stop it.

And the “guest worker” and “legal status” argument is just as disconnected from reality. The Democrats just want to keep getting millions of young socialists here grabbing up jobs. Sure, they’d like to get the vote for them, too, but that is secondary. Their children will vote Democrat.

No surprise about Ms. Rogers, her Republican response to the State of the Union was pathetic. I guess she is the latest WOMAN spokeswoman for the establishment. (By the way, I’m a woman, to anyone who might be offended) I agree with many of the previous commenters-time to call DC. It is getting old to constantly call Washington and be ignored and then, attacked in the media.

Yup. It’s the same bait and switch that Obama perpetrated with his “If you like your insurance ….” lie. They have every intention of giving the illegals amnesty once they get the legal status. And it will be sold as a second class citizens issue before the ink is dried on this bill.

The fact of the matter is that everybody knows that with legal status, amnesty is sure to follow. It is one of the lies the pro-amnesty crowd refuses to acknowledge, even here at HA. They pretend as if this isn’t amnesty just as long enough that it does become amnesty.

Happy Nomad on April 28, 2014 at 12:00 PM

As fas as I’m concerned, if you give them legalized status, that is amnesty.

Every purple state turns blue. Every red state turns purple. Yeah, I understand why the Dems slobber over this, but not the Republicans. It’s as if the Dems filled all six chambers of a political gun and the R’s are all too eager to spin and pull the trigger.

If farms truly can’t find workers when we have 1 million new legal immigrants come every year plus the 10-20 million illegal aliens already here and then whatever new illegal immigrants are crossing the border then we have a serious problem. Amnesty and increasing immigration obviously aren’t the answers. We need real reform, not the scams being peddled by DC.

If farms truly can’t find workers when we have 1 million new legal immigrants come every year plus the 10-20 million illegal aliens already here and then whatever new illegal immigrants are crossing the border then we have a serious problem. Amnesty and increasing immigration obviously aren’t the answers. We need real reform, not the scams being peddled by DC.

Wigglesworth on April 28, 2014 at 12:20 PM

If they can’t get enough people to work these farms without open borders and illegals the problem clearly is the owners of these businesses are not willing to pay a high enough wage to induce people to want those jobs.

I haven’t voted Democrat in over 2 decades, but in the most recent special election in my state I wrote in a candidate because I had to choose between 2 amnesty-loving Democrats, one had an R next to his name.

Oh but there is something to gain: they won’t be called racists by the media.

Scottie on April 28, 2014 at 12:19 PM

LOL, that is going to happen regardless. The media will just lament how the GOP was forced to do amnesty by their chamber of commerce leash-holders, in a last ditch attempt to pander to Hispanics before the mid-terms.

They’ll still be racists, they’ll just be well paid, pandering racists instead.

I think I understand your emphasis on the border, but I don’t think it matters from the perspective of taking on keeping the amnesty issue front and center instead of border security.

Winning by denying the passage of amnesty will, in effect, lead to better border security in that fewer people will try to cross illegally.

Wining by concentrating, (I think you are implying) on promises border security while compromising on legal status, will just give us more illegal crossings and no future effort at border security.

I do agree with you that bw222 shouldn’t dramatize the issue with commie-facist comparisons. That said, your idea that we grant lawbreaking illegals citizenship because some Americans in Chicago bigger criminals than they are, is preposterous and insulting. There are two billion or more foreigners that are more law abiding and would be better Americans than the illegals in our midst now. Let’s arrange to let those and kick out the illegals.

Line up and vote for the Party, citizen, you must do your duty as you are told.
Don’t worry though, there is a hill waaaaaay off in the distance that the GOP is going to fight for, don’t bother looking for it because it’s quite a ways off.

Okay gang it does look like the fix is in. I called Pete Olson’s office. Olson champions his conservative cred and is of course no where to be seen anywhere but he represents a very conservative district in Sugar Land, Tx.

Me “Hey! what the deal with GOP leadership pushing amnesty, conceding Obamacare is here to stay and throwing in the towel of the budget and debts?”

Pete Olson staffer “Sir, it is called compromise and that is how politics works! Mr. Olson could not get elected in Virginia or New York you know?”

This will further hurt the African American community. The results will not be good.

[airupthere on April 28, 2014 at 12:21 PM]

Yeah, I really don’t understand why the progressives in the media and RarelyDemocratic Party want to force some Americans into second class status again. They might just as well hand out “Blacks Need Not Apply” to their campaign donors. No doubt Democrat donor Donald Sterling would approve.

Question #2: Once the illegals gain citizenship, how many will go on disability rather than continue working in the fields?

bw222 on April 28, 2014 at 12:32 PM

Some of them, I’m sure. But that’s the best part about amnesties: there’s an endless supply of new illegal immigrants to take the place of those who are amnestied into legal status. Mexico alone has 120 million people as of 2012.

My wife has been seeking employment in the high-tech area for about a 18 months. I set up RSS feeds from the major job aggregation sites as well as from the specific employers she’s targeting.

We therefore have a large database of job creation in CA covering the region from Silicon Valley to Sacramento over the past 18 months.

We’ve noticed over the past ~60 days or so, a marked decline in the number of job postings. Some are explained by a decline in the healthcare area due perhaps to Obamacare ostensibly making it over a hump.

But the majority, from firms like Google, HP, etc. to mid-size firms are not attributable to Obamacare.

Are they battening down the hatches in general?

As I am not a believer in coincidence where corruption and politics are involved, I have to wonder if the high-tech giants are cutting back, confidently ‘waiting’ for immigration reform’s massive flood of cheap foreign workers…

My point, which totally went over your head (and that isn’t hard to do) is that you were commenting on how much better illegals are then the “citizens” of Detroit and Chicago. They are “slightly” better in areas like illegitimacy (53% vs. 71%) and incarceration in federal prisons (34% vs. 39%). They still negatively impact the nation in virtually every measure.

This is all about keeping that sweet campaign cash flowing from their business donors who want more cheap and legal labor. What they fail to realize is that you can have 2 trillion to spend on a campaign but if you run out of voters all the money in the world is pointless. The GOP has been circling the drain for some time now. Between this and what I am sure will be their “moderate electable” in 2016, that should be the final death knell. Goodbye GOP.

The Republicans can win more seats, if they pass the right immigration bill. My idea of right and theirs are probably 2 different things but, bill that includes border security, codification of the worker permit system, strengthens penalties on employers who hire illegals and forces the President to actually enforce the law, could garner votes they won’t get by passing nothing.

On the day that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) told a local newspaper that she believed amnesty legislation could be brought to the floor by August, she met with Satya Nadella, the new CEO of Microsoft.

Microsoft is part of the recently revealed high tech conspiracy to suppress wages. AND WHY WASN’T THAT REVELLATION REPORTED HERE?

I visited a Chamber of Commerce office recently in my city. The place was beautifully furnished and had dozens of full-time employees. As the lady gave me a tour, she described the different things they did. Nearly all of them involved some form of corporate welfare: one guy was responsible for government loans, another for grants, three more for various tax credits, another for an overseas investment program called EB-5, a private-public partnership coordinator, etc. They had over three dozen employees alone dedicated to helping out with fringe benefit programs. How is this in any way conservative???

The GOPe is so smug. Sitting back, reigning over us rather than serving the needs of their constituents, and confident that we have no where else to go if we are dissatisfied with what they choose to do, despite our most vociferous objections.

If they pass amnesty, and let’s just be honest, an legalization to those who have willfully shattered federal immigration law, ignored US national sovereignty, and demonstrated a complete disdain for the rights of the citizens and legal immigrants of this nation, is amnesty, the GOPe is going to be aghast and bewildered when many of us choose not to turn up to vote for them… in the midterms… the general… or ever again.

I will not vote for a cult of personality, I will not vote for partisanship. I will vote based on policy. If the policy the GOP offers me is something I regard as disastrous for this nation, they will never have my vote again.

The rich are buying off the critical and necessary prostitutes now, one by one, to get this amnesty passed. No doubt they will all be set up with cushy jobs with exorbitant salaries if they lose their elected positions or decide to retire. It all just a matter of haggling about the price.

The Republicans can win more seats, if they pass the right immigration bill. My idea of right and theirs are probably 2 different things but, bill that includes border security, codification of the worker permit system, strengthens penalties on employers who hire illegals and forces the President to actually enforce the law, could garner votes they won’t get by passing nothing.

bflat879 on April 28, 2014 at 12:47 PM

Most of what you suggested was included in the 1986 amnesty, but never enforced. What makes you thing it will be enforced in 2014 (especially with Obama, Holder and Teh Johnson in charge)?

The Republicans can win more seats, if they pass the right immigration bill. My idea of right and theirs are probably 2 different things but, bill that includes border security, codification of the worker permit system, strengthens penalties on employers who hire illegals and forces the President to actually enforce the law, could garner votes they won’t get by passing nothing.

bflat879 on April 28, 2014 at 12:47 PM

Yep, two different things.

Fact of the matter,

Border Security- how many bills do we need? The laws are already on the books, they just need to be enforced.

Codification of the worker permit system- We have that for the legal workers. What more needs to be codified?

Strengthening penalties on employers- Again, this is already out there but seldom enforced.

A different President- speaks for itself.

The reality is that Congresscritters are not talking about immigration reform they are talking about an amnesty bill. And not one thing being suggested by McMorris-Rogers or anyone else has to do with reforming the immigration system. It is all about shoehorining 11-20 million undeserving leeches on society into a system that they’ve ignored and scoffed at as they break our laws.

Those bad actors are doing everything they can to get AMNESTY including the huge increases to the number of H1-B visas.

dogsoldier on April 28, 2014 at 12:49 PM

I have no problem attracting highly trained workers from overseas. Let some other country pay to train them, and we reap the benefits. Great.

But opponents have a point: Under normal market conditions, if high-tech wages go up, more Americans will invest the time and money to get educated and to enter high-tech fields. That increase in labor supply will reduce wages, until an equilibrium is reached. But immigration up-ends that whole process. If companies just open the floodgates with H1-B workers, wages get depressed, which leads less Americans to invest the time and money to get educated to do that work, which in turn fuels more demand in Silicon Valley for H1-B labor.

Today’s U.S. Chamber of Commerce is as dangerous to the future of the country and the American middle class as any far-left organization. They are all about crony capitalism and corporate welfare and they don’t care if it comes from Democrats or Republicans.

Once we have full employment numbers, close to the great numbers Bush put up, we can talk about H1-B workers. As for Mexico and South America’s dumping program, e verify for all benefits, jobs, and stiff fines and jail per illegal hired will deal with that issue. Then, gang members, operation clean up will do and charge the home country for any incarceration or burial expenses.

The Republicans can win more seats, if they pass the right immigration bill. My idea of right and theirs are probably 2 different things but, bill that includes border security, codification of the worker permit system, strengthens penalties on employers who hire illegals and forces the President to actually enforce the law, could garner votes they won’t get by passing nothing.

bflat879 on April 28, 2014 at 12:47 PM

The opportunity to have done something like this was Bush’s plan in 2006. It had border enforcement, a guest worker program, and no path to citizenship. But unfortunately we shouted it down, and now the Democrats have outflanked us on this issue.

Rory Reid, the son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says, “We believe in a country in which we are subject to laws and you can’t just ignore the laws we don’t like,” I wish the interviewer had said, “Wait a minute. Are you talking about Bundy or about obama’s immigration policy of letting 11 million undocumented aliens stay in the country?”

I think I’m beginning to believe that the GOPe are full of spite. They were going along, living in the DC bubble, making money on the side, and planning their retirement and that fat paycheck coming from being a lobbyist. Then bam along comes these upstart Tea Partiers and their demands that the Repubs stick to the party platform! Who do these plebes think they are? Don’t they know who I am they scream. Now because we dare to hold their feet to the fire and mess up their plans they are going to punish us by passing amnesty, refusing to repeal Obamacare etc. to he// with the country they will have their money. Hey Boner has his beautiful new beach house in Florida paid for by the Chamber of Commerce and his millions in under the table payoffs to live in style for the rest of his days.

Rush on the radio now talking about the suicide mission that the GOP is on with immigration reform. He also says he is hoping for some opposition party. If any immigration law is passed, no laws will be followed (they aren’t now) and they will vote. There goes Texas and there goes any chance of ever winning the White House again. And some of you stilldefend the establishment GOP? God have mercy on us.

They should just pass it to finally prove what I’ve known all along about establishment Republican politicians: They are no more looking out for my interests than Democrat politicians are.

They pass this and I’ll be staying home in November. I also think they’ll lose their shot at the senate, but who cares? They don’t go to bat for the beliefs of their base. The Democrats go to the wall for their base. Republicans just stab their base in the back, repeatedly.